Business operations have used methods for guiding activity and monitoring that activity through reviews of paperwork received on periodic schedules. Businesses may use the information collected to monitor employee productivity, schedule vendors for new materials as they are needed and/or schedule transportation for completed components or projects. In addition, they may keep track of specific projects to ensure that the progress is consistent with the expected delivery date of the project. In order to assess this information, it may be necessary to compile certain information regarding a project, material usage and/or an employee. In such cases, the information may be compiled by hand or input into a computer system by hand based on the paper copies. Accordingly, an accurate analysis of the above considerations cannot be conducted until after the material is fully compiled.
For illustrative purposes, manufacturing operations have used paper work orders to provide activity guidance and upon later collection and review of those work orders, the business may monitor the output from one or more people in the manufacturing process. A work order may be provided to an employee with one or more projects and/or one or more sequence steps for each project. For example, the work order may be for the assembly of a product and include five steps for completing the assembly. The work order may provide a simple identification for the work to be completed or a short description in the limited space available. The employee takes the work order sheet and fills in a start time by hand when the employee begins the specific step indicated. Upon completion of that step, the employee would fill in the stop time. Depending on the work order, the employee may also manually fill in additional information for the project, such as the work center, setup time, and/or a quantity of components made during that step. Finally, each employee may also be required to maintain a time sheet to account for the time spent working on each project and any breaks during the day.
Following the completion and/or return of the work order to a supervisor or other person, the work order information is processed and may be input by a typist into a computer system. Once all the information is input, a status report may be created for summary review. In addition to the delay of the system, work orders may be lost or destroyed during the manufacturing operations causing potentially inaccurate information to be provided, either due to it being completely missing or improperly noted by memory from the employee on a replacement sheet. In addition, work orders may be given to other manufacturing personnel in certain situations further increasing the possibility of inaccurate information in a compiled analysis if the work order is lost without knowledge of the status of the project. For example, if different people conduct different steps of an assembly project, the work order and component of the project may be given to the employee performing the next step and so on down the line.